A copyright battle is heating up in Maryland, and it involves a very unlikely subject—students’ schoolwork. From science fair projects to finger paintings, the Prince George’s County Board of Education’s proposed educational copyright policy would ensure that work created by students and staff would become the property of the school system.

The policy specifically states:

Works created by employees and/or students specifically for use by the Prince George’s County Public Schools or a specific school or department within PGCPS, are properties of the Board of Education even if created on the employee’s or student’s time and with the use of their materials… Further, works created during school/work hours, with the use of school system materials, and within the scope of an employee’s position or student’s classroom work assignment(s) are the properties of the Board of Education.

Not surprisingly, the copyright policy has created a lot of buzz. The county maintains that the policy is designed to target computer programs and other online curricula that teachers may create for their students and later sell for profit. However, critics argue that the policy goes way too far and runs the risk of stifling creativity, among both students and staff.

The legal basis for the policy is also under fire. Under the “work-for-hire” doctrine, works made during the scope of one’s employment belong to the employer. In 2004, a federal appellate court in New York confirmed that the doctrine applied to “tests, quizzes, homework problems, and other teaching materials” prepared by teachers. Therefore, the policy could likely be upheld as applied to educators.

However, a similar legal justification does not exist when it comes to students, particularly those under 18. Without a waiver execution by a parent or legal guardian, copyright law holds that the rights to any works remain with the student.

Ultimately, the backlash seems to be forcing county administrators to reconsider reigning back the policy. Briant Coleman, a spokesman for the school board, recently stated, “Please know that we would never try to impede on the creativity of our students, teachers and employees. In fact, we encourage it. The policy is currently on hold and under legal review until further notice.”

]]>http://blog.martindale.com/who-owns-the-copyright-to-a-students-science-fair-project/feed0Louis Vuitton Objects to University of Pennsylvania Law School’s Spoof of its Famous Logohttp://blog.martindale.com/louis-vuitton-objects-to-university-of-pennsylvania-law-schools-spoof-of-its-famous-logo
http://blog.martindale.com/louis-vuitton-objects-to-university-of-pennsylvania-law-schools-spoof-of-its-famous-logo#commentsWed, 21 Mar 2012 19:44:07 +0000http://blog.martindale.com/?p=5320

University of Pennsylvania Law School, in preparation for a symposium on fashion law and intellectual property law, created a very clever poster to publicize the event. What did UPenn come up with? A poster which riffed on Louis Vuitton’s famous logo. The poster was done up in the same famous colors as a Louis Vuitton bag-brown and mustard yellow. However, instead of the trademark “LV’s” and flowers, the poster contained mini TM’s (for registered trademarks) and registered copyright symbols in the same font as the famous LV’s. Louis Vuitton’s reaction? Instead of appreciating the cheeky humor clearly displayed by the artwork on the poster, it sent UPenn a cease and desist letter demanding that the posters be taken down immediately (!)

Louis Vuitton’s attorney, Mr. Pantalony, claimed that UPenn:

had misappropriated and modified the LV Trademarks and Toile Monogram as the background for its invitation and poster …This egregious action is not only a serious willful infringement and knowingly dilutes the LV Trademarks, but also may mislead others into thinking that this type of unlawful activity is somehow ‘legal’ or constitutes ‘fair use’ because [UPenn] is sponsoring a seminar on fashion law and ‘must be experts’. People seeing the invitation/poster may believe that Louis Vuitton either sponsored the seminar or was otherwise involved, and approved the misuse of its trademarks in this manner. I would have thought [UPenn] and its faculty advisors would understand the basics of intellectual property law and know better than to infringe and dilute the famous trademarks of fashion brands, including the LV Trademarks, for a symposium on fashion law.

Instead of quaking in their boots at the sight of this letter and tearing down the posters, UPenn’s counsel subjected Mr. Pantalony to a mini-lecture on intellectual property law and lucidly explained to Louis Vuitton’s counsel why UPenn’s posters did not infringe on Louis Vuitton’s trademarks in any way, shape or form. He discussed several exceptions to trademark infringement law, including parody and use for educational purposes.

Specifically, UPenn’s counsel, Mr. Firestone, noted that:

15 U.S.C. 1125 (c) (3) expressly protects a noncommercial use of a mark and a parody from any claim for dilution.

Then Mr. Firestone tore into Louis Vuitton’s claim that the posters will cause confusion in the minds of its viewers and lead them to think that Louis Vuitton is associated with UPenn’s fashion law symposium. He also explains what is necessary to establish trademark infringement under the Lanham Act as well as the exceptions to such a finding that are relevant to the instant situation:

There also is no violation of 15 U.S.C. 1125(a) because there is no likelihood of confusion that Louis Vuitton sponsored or is associated with [UPenn’s] annual educational symposium. You assert that clever artwork parody that appears on the poster and invitation is a ‘serious willful infringement’. However, to constitute trademark infringement under the Lanham Act, [UPenn] has to be using a trademark in interstate commerce, which is substantially similar to Louis Vuitton’s mark(s), and which is likely to cause confusion between Louis Vuitton’s luxury apparel goods and [UPenn’s] educational conference among the relevant audience. First, I don’t believe that [UPenn’s] artwork parody was adopted as, or is being used as, a trademark to identify any goods and services. It is artwork on a poster to supplement text, designed to evoke some of the very issues to be discussed at the conference… Second, although you don’t cite the actual federal trademark regulations that you assert protect your marks, I doubt any of them are registered in Class 41 to cover educational symposia in intellectual property law issues. There is no substantial similarity between the goods identified by Louis Vuitton’s marks and the [UPenn] educational symposium. Third, there is no likelihood of confusion possible here. The lawyers, law students, and fashion industry executives who will attend the symposium certainly are unlikely to think that Louis Vuitton is organizing the conference; the poster clearly says that [UPenn] has organized the event…You also state that [UPenn’s] use of its artwork parody knowingly dilutes the Louis Vuitton trademarks. I disagree. First, [UPenn] has not commenced use of the artwork as a mark or trade name, which is a prerequisite for any liability under 15 U.S.C. 1125 (c) (1). More importantly, however, even if [UPenn] has used the artwork as a mark there is an explicit exception to any liability for dilution by blurring or dilution by tarnishment for ‘any noncommercial use of a mark’. 15 U.S.C. 1125 (c) (3) (C). A law student group at a non-profit university promoting its annual educational symposium is a noncommercial use. Lastly, the artwork clearly is a fair use under 15 U.S.C. 1125 (c) (3) (A) and a parody protected under 15 U.S.C. 1125 (c) (3) (A) (ii). The poster and invitation are clear that Louis Vuitton is not a sponsor of the symposium, and no reasonable person would be confused or deceived as to sponsorship, affiliation, connection or association regarding Louis Vuitton and [UPenn’s] conference, merely because of the clever artwork parody illustrating the invitation and poster.

Mr. Firestone could not resist one final dig at Louis Vuitton and its counsel. He signed off his letter with the following invitation to Mr. Pantalony: “In addition, I encourage you to attend the symposium on March 20, 2012.” Somehow, I doubt Mr. Pantalony or anyone else associated with Louis Vuitton will take Mr. Firestone up on his invitation.

The Supreme Court, in Golan v. Holder, U.S. Supreme Court, Slip Opinion No. 10-545 (decided January 18, 2012), approved an act of Congress that transformed the status of foreign works which had been in the public domain for many years if not decades to that of copyright protected status. This will have an effect on live and recorded musical performances and the publication of printed material, which in turn affects the use of foreign works in advertising and marketing campaigns that previously could be used royalty free. The Act in question is the Uruguay Round of Agreement Act (Title 17 U.S.C. §104A), enacted in 1994. The Act “restored” copyright protection to certain foreign works which were in the public domain. Although the Act protects exploiters of the affected works prior to the Act’s passage, prospectively the restoration placed those foreign works on an equal footing with US works.

The genesis of passage of the Act was America’s decision in 1989 to finally join the 1886 Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. The members of the Berne Convention agree to provide a minimum level of copyright protection and to treat authors from other member countries as well as they treat their own. Article 18 of Berne requires countries to protect the works of other member states unless the works’ copyright term has expired in either the country where protection is claimed or in the country of origin. Between 1891 and 1989, US copyright protection of foreign authors was limited to those whose works were published in the US and to those whose countries granted reciprocal protection to US authors. Prior to 1891, all foreign works were excluded from US copyright protection making the US the “Barbary coast of literature”, according to a US Senator in 1891.

The petitioners in Golan v. Holder were orchestra conductors, musicians, publishers, and others who formerly enjoyed free access to works that the Act removed from the public domain. The Court held that Congress did not exceed its authority under the Copyright and Patent Clause Art. I, § 8, cl. 8. Additionally, the Court held that the First Amendment did not inhibit Congress from restoring copyright status to works in the public domain. The Court pointed out that Congress had previously granted copyright protection to works in the public domain by enacting the Copyright Act of 1790 (which granted copyright protection to works that already had been published in the US) showing that the First Congress “did not view the public domain as inviolate.” One of the points made by the dissent, per Justice Breyer joined by Justice Alito, is that tradition and case law in the US sets us apart from continental Europe and inhibits us from harmonizing our copyright laws with those of countries in the civil-law tradition. The majority specifically disagreed with that dissenting position.

What is the effect of the Act now that it has been held constitutional? As the Supreme Court put it, Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf could once be performed free of charge, but now the right to perform it must be obtained in the marketplace just like the works of American composers Bernstein and Copeland.

Then I remembered that today, January 18, 2012, many websites are “blacking out” in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) that is going around Congress this week. This video explains what SOPA is all about:

Have you ever downloaded or uploaded something on the Internet? We all have, but in today’s world, where content is always just a click away, it can be difficult to determine which activities can get you in trouble. This Event showed members what they needed to know about peer-to-peer sharing and other Internet IP issues. It featured a CLE webinar with David Nimmer, author of the prestigious treatise Nimmer on Copyright. We also saw many guest blog posts and downloadable content made available in the Intellectual Property Group.

Check out these video interviews I did with David Nimmer for the event:

Co-hosted with Alliance Partner Lex Mundi, the world’s leading association of independent law firms, this event explored the results of a LexisNexis Martindale-Hubbell global survey, “Lawyer-to-Lawyer Referrals: A Global Perspective”, which combined views of legal professionals from mid- and large size law firms in Western and Eastern Europe, Asia, Latin America and the US. Over 700 legal professionals who participated in the anonymous survey during February and March 2010.

Whether you are starting your first year of law school or you are a 3L preparing for on-campus interview season, strategies for success in law school are quite different from year to year. With that in mind, martindale.com Connected and the Lexis Hub for New Attorneys brought together experts to share their advice. This event presented special focus forums and a video cast that you can watch by clicking this link.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) along with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 is a product of the health care reform agenda of the Democratic 111th Congress and the Obama administration. The law includes a large number of health-related provisions to take effect over the next four years, including expanding Medicaid eligibility, subsidizing insurance premiums, providing incentives for businesses to provide health care benefits, prohibiting denial of coverage/claims based on pre-existing conditions, establishing health insurance exchanges, and support for medical research. This Event featured members of the LexisNexis Health Care Reform Panel of Experts, an elite group of thought leaders on the various aspects and impacts of the PPACA. During the event, panelists shared their expertise and opinions about the PPACA through blogs, forums and podcasts, which culminated in a 2-hour, 4-part webinar.

In these demanding times, we are all asked to do more with less, and the incentive to take shortcuts can undermine even the best corporate compliance programs. At the same time, many companies are now facing increasing regulation and governmental scrutiny both at home and abroad. The current market crisis demands a renewed emphasis on cutting edge corporate compliance through the use of the best compliance practices in each relevant market. What is the best approach to creating effective auditing and monitoring? What are the proposed changes to the federal sentencing guidelines? How can you use the attorney-client privilege to protect risk assessments in Civil Code Jurisdictions?

The answers to these questions and more were discussed by the experts during our Corporate Compliance event. It featured insights from thought leaders and subject matter experts through podcasts, blog and forum posts, free downloads, video interviews and more.

Beginning on April 20, 2010 the world watched as one of the worst environmental disasters in history unfolded in the Gulf of Mexico. After killing workers on the Deepwater Horizon rig, the explosion triggered a seemingly unstoppable gush of crude oil that spewed from the ocean floor for most of the summer. The leak caused devastation along the coast, harming wildlife, ecosystems, individuals and businesses. A compensation fund has been established. Hundreds of lawsuits have been filed. One MDL has been set up in New Orleans to handle damage and injury claims, while another has been established in Houston to deal with securities claims.

These and other issues were covered during Connected’s Gulf Oil Spill Litigation event, which culminated with a free CLE webinar, “Litigation Spotlight on Claims Arising Out of the Gulf Oil Spill.” You can see all the guest blog posts and content that was posted during our event in the Environmental Group.

This event focused on the interplay between professional liability and general liability policies when both policies are implicated in one claim. Martindale.com Connected and the Council on Litigation Management (CLM) presented a one-hour webinar on Tuesday, November 16, 2010. Titled “One Claim…Two Policies,” which addressed this nuance.

The doctrine of functionality is meant to ensure that useful designs or product features are not monopolized. Hence, courts are wary of protecting product design trade dress and product features that may be basic to the product’s use, may make a product easier or cheaper to produce, or may otherwise be useful to competitors. Meanwhile, its close cousin, aesthetic functionality, denies protection to visually appealing features where there is a competitive necessity for their use.

These issues and more were analyzed and discussed during our Trademark Law event, which included guest blogs written by lawyers from Pattishall, McAuliffe, Newbury, Hilliard and Geraldson. It also included a CLE webinar, which featured Janet Marvel, co-author of the treatise Trademarks and Unfair Competition Deskbook (4th Ed. 2009), and Anne Gilson LaLonde, author of Gilson on Trademarks.

We don’t need to tell you that practicing law is rarely a nine-to-five gig. Whether you are in-house or a private practice lawyer, the job easily can dominate your life, if you let it. This Event presented the experience and advice of successful lawyers in the industry to help you find your much-needed, and deserved, work-life balance. We heard stories from lawyers like Michael Chang, Senior In-House Counsel at Warner Brothers, who grew up as an immigrant in America and learned to speak English from Bugs Bunny cartoons, a cartoon that is produced by the same studio he now works for. Other guest bloggers shared their stories in the Lawyer Career Center. To read them, join the Lawyer Career Center Group.

The event also included a Live Twitter discussion using the hashtag #LOTL where all of our guest bloggers shared their insights on work life balance. Be on the look out for an MH Blog Post summarizing what was said. Also, we recorded a special edition Martindale Mike podcast with Michael Chang, Richard Russeth, and June Casalmir which will be released in early 2011.

That’s it for events from 2010. I’m happy to say that we are planning some great Theme Weeks and Events for 2011 on topics like LPOs, Green Cards for Foreign Entrepreneurs, Unbundling Services, and more. Let us know in the comments what kinds of content you’d like to see us focus on in the coming year, and we’ll try to make it happen.

The Martindale Mike Podcast – “Getting to the Truth One Lawyer at a Time”

Think Larry King Live for lawyers meets The Daily Show. The Martindale Mike Podcast, hosted by yours truly, invites the best legal minds to talk about hot legal issues and asks them to leave out the boring parts. In our first episode, Ron Coleman, head of the intellectual property practice at Goetz Fitzpatrick LLP, and author of the award winning blog Likelihood of Confusion, discusses COICA, the controversial new act before the Senate Judiciary Committee, which if passed will authorize the Attorney General to seek injunctive relief against the web address or domain name of any website that is “dedicated to infringing activities,” resulting in confiscation (“civil forfeiture) of the web address by the government and the shutting down of the site by the Internet Service Provider. A major component of the proposed act includes a watch list (AKA “a black list”) that will list suspected sites prior to the government instituting any formal legal proceedings to shut down the site. Is this McCarthyism all over again? Listen to the podcast to find out.

The Legal Ethics of Cocktail Party Chatter

Just in time for the holidays, this podcast features three lawyers from around the country who, interestingly enough, went to high school together.

As the year comes to a close we wrap our our last theme, Life Outside the Law. It has been an amazing two weeks with contributions by some great and talented lawyers. Here are a few of the guest posts you may have missed:

I remember being thrilled when I found this nail polish by OPI a few years back called “I’m not just a waitress.” That phrase had become my mantra at that point in time. I was fresh out of law school, degree in hand, license to practice on its way (and then eventually in hand) with no legal job prospects on the horizon. I returned to waitressing when I moved back to Massachusetts as a way to make some “extra” money while studying for the bar. I never thought it would be my full-time job for the next two-and-a-half years.

Two Practices, One Life: Why Your Life Outside The Law Matters - General Counsel of Leprino Foods Richard Russeth writes:

My practice is important to me. I am up just about everyday at 5 AM working to build that practice. Get better at it. Take it further. It’s a solo practice in case you were wondering. No partners – and I like it that way. Yes, I practice yoga for a solid hour every morning, rain or shine, barring the usual scheduling problems of life.

The Missing Link: How Lawyers Are Failing to Maximize Public Relations in Their Practices

Public Relations expert Paramjit Mahli shares some real pearls of wisdom in her comprehensive blog post on Connected. She writes:

The old adage that the more things change, the more they remain the same still holds some truth. Public perceptions continue to have a strong hold in society. Visibility and credibility still go a long way in cementing business relationships and deals. Yet many law firms still don’t quite embrace public relations initiatives. The mystery about what public relations is remains. Far too many attorneys fail to understand how public relations works. Wrong assumptions are made such as thinking that an advertisement promoting the firm counts as PR or that only lawyers who do high-profile litigation cases receive media attention. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every day hundreds of small- and medium-sized law firms are quoted in widely read publications, raising awareness of their firms and gaining credibility as experts in the marketplace. Firms that don’t realize this suffer from missed opportunities to attract new clients.

At the time of this writing, Caitlin Devlin just became our 39,919th member. We are slowly trending to break the 40,000 mark by midnight, December 31st. It would be great to see a big push in the final week of the year and have that milestone blown out of the water. So how about it? Will YOU be our 40,000th member?

That’s it for today’s Connected Round Up. Members can get in on these discussions and more by clicking the links and commenting. Non-members can check see all these discussions, but need to register to comment – it’s 100% free. Happy Holidays everybody!

Every year thousands of costume clad geeks, fan boys, and even lawyers flock to the San Diego Comic Con, a comic book convention of super hero sized proportions. In honor of this annual pilgrimage, (and because I am an old school comic book dork), I decided to put together my top 5 comic book lawsuit list. If you disagree with my choices or have suggestions of your own, leave a comment and let me know.

A lawsuit filed in May 2010 by Jazan Wild, author of a 2005-2006 comic series called Carnival of Souls, against NBC and Heroes creator Tim Kring, alleges that the storyline carnival depicted in the final season of the recently cancelled show was lifted right from his work. According to Comic Book Resources’ website, Wild seeks “to prevent NBC from rebroadcasting the season, and seeks compensatory and punitive damages for copyright infringement, intentional interference with prospective economic advantage, unfair competition and unjust enrichment.”

Iron Man, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, The Avengers, and Hulk; created years ago by legendary artist Jack Kirby, these characters are some of the hottest properties in comic books and movies today. Not wanting to let any of that money go, Marvel comics and parent Walt Disney Co. have filed “a preemptive strike to halt the Kirby family’s bid to reclaim the characters,” says the LA Times Blog.

Last year, Kirby estate attorney Marc Toberoff sent a series of letters to licensors and copyright holders informing them of the estate’s intent to terminate copyright to these valuable properties in the coming years. If the estate is correct in their rights to terminate this would give them serious leverage in any future negotiations with Marvel and Disney.

Many of these characters were created in the 1960′s, what is known as the “Silver Age” of comics. Does anyone have insight or opinion as to whether the copyright terminations will be successful? Feel free to comment below. You can read more about Jack Kirby and the Silver Age here.

#3 – Gaiman v. McFarlane: Co-Owners of Hell Spawns?

Neil Gaiman is a critically acclaimed writer of well-known works like the Sandman series, Coraline, and Stardust (the last two have been made into feature films). Todd McFarlane is a popular artist and creator of the Spawn series, which has also been made into a feature film.

In the early, 1990′s McFarlane decided to open his own publishing house called “Image Comics,” in a move to break away from the big boys. He based his business model on the concept of creator owned works rather than the industry standard, work-made-for-hire arrangement.

One of his first commercial successes was the Spawn series, which he both wrote and drew, but it was criticized as being “badly written.” McFarlane decided to bring on some of the best writers in the business to give his series a literary boost, one of whom was Gaiman. From the Second Circuit opinion by Judge Posner (available here for free on the LexisONE community):

In his script for Spawn No. 9, Gaiman introduced three new characters–Medieval Spawn (as he was later called by McFarlane–Gaiman had not named it and in the issue he is just referred to as a Spawn, with no further identifier), Angela (no last name), and Count Nicholas Cogliostro. Gaiman described, named, and [*9] wrote the dialogue for them, but McFarlane drew them. Gaiman contends that he and McFarlane are joint owners of the copyrights on the three characters by reason of their respective contributions to joint (indivisible) work.

The Second Circuit affirmed the lower courts opinion that Gaiman was a joint owner in the work and gave him the relief he sought. Posner’s opinion is worth the read.

This case involved a 12-year legal battle (the longest running one in comic book history) starting in 1941, which eventually resulted in the dissolution of Fawcett Comics and the cancellation of it’s superhero related properties. The fight started over claims that Fawcett’s character Captain Marvel infringed on NCP’s (today known as DC Comics) character Superman.

NCP argued that Captain Marvel’s main powers and characteristics (super-strength, speed, invulnerability, costume and cape, and an alter ego) were based entirely on Superman. Fawcett argued there were differences between the characters, (Marvel’s powers were magic based and his alter ego was a child) which made Captain Marvel non-infringing. The lower court found in Fawcett’s favor based on a copyright abandonment theory.

In 1951, Judge Learned Hand sitting on the Second Circuit, reversed the lower court, holding that Superman’s copyright was valid and that Captain Marvel infringed. The case citation is 191 F.2d 594 (2d Cir. 1951).

#1 – Superman No More: Time Warner Loses Most of Copyright to Creators’ Family

The Man of Steel has been one of the most beloved and popular comic book heroes of all time. When teenage writers Jerry Siegal and Joe Shuster came up with a Superman comic strip in 1933 they had no idea that a major media company would be fighting with their heirs over rights well into the 21st Century. In 1938 the two writers signed an employment agreement with DC Comics acknowledging the publisher as the exclusive owner of Superman for $130 each.

As the years went on the parties fought over small sums and DC reaffirmed their rights to Superman in the 1970′s. In 1997, however, Siegal’s heirs served statutory notices of termination to DC. After years of unsuccessful negotiations the Siegal heirs sued “seeking a declaratory judgment that the terminations were effective.” The court found that for the most part, they were, meaning that DC stands to potentially lose one of it’s most profitable characters in the next few years unless a new deal can be reached. Perhaps the Siegals and Shusters will finally get the compensation they deserve?

To read an clear and concise overview of the complicated laws involved in this copyright termination case, read the article Time Warner Loses Superman Copyright to Creator’s Family, by the law firm of Robinson, Bradshaw & Hinson available for free here on our Legal Library.

What do others think? Are these cases in your Top 5 Comic Book Lawsuits? What should be here that isn’t?

What is peer to peer sharing? In the post, The Dangers of Downloading, we said, “[p]eer to Peer sharing involves any distributed network composed of users that make a portion of their resources available to other users on that network.” In plain English it means I’ll download yours if you’ll download mine.

This topic was compelling enough to draw David Nimmer, Of Counsel at Irell and Manella and author of the prestigious treatise Nimmer on Copyright. According to David, peer to peer sharing issues are in such flux because, “[s]ome courts have construed the term ‘distribution’ as synonymous with ‘publication,’ whereas others have disagreed and required proof of an actual act of distribution.” Proving actual distribution is far more difficult for plaintiffs like the RIAA and MPAA who have initiated 35,000 pieces of litigation against users. These cases tend to settle fast, requiring little more than a demand letter from the plaintiff to recoup a few thousand dollars from the defendant.

We’ve had a host of guest blogs for the Dangers of Downloading event so far, and a free CLE webinar on June 16th presented by David Nimmer and Peter Menell, Professor of Law at Berkeley Law and Director of Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, and hosted by Jason C. Kravitz, Partner and Practice Group Leader of Brands & Creations at Nixon Peabody. The webinar will be available for playback by members of Martindale.com Connected, and here are some links to guest posts and threads on the topic that members can access as well:

I first met David Nimmer in the summer of 2004. He was visiting our Newark office to give a talk about copyright in the digital age and a new update to his famous treatise Nimmer on Copyright. As a presenter, David was as brilliant as he is a lawyer: dynamic, knowledgeable, and funny (yes funny).

You now have the opportunity to join a live presentation with David Nimmer and see what I’m talking about. Register for our free CLE webinar*** happening on June 16, 2010 at 12pm EST where David will talk about people getting sued for using the Internet – pretty scary stuff (read more below).

Dangerous Downloads

Where Courts Hold on Peer-to-Peer Sharing

Have you ever downloaded or uploaded something on the Internet? We all have, but in today’s world, where content is always just a click away, it can be difficult to determine which activities can get you in trouble. There have been numerous law suits against ordinary users. Whether you are a lawyer with clients who use the Internet, or if you are a client yourself, understanding how to avoid getting sued by record companies and motion picture associations can help you feel more secure in consuming content online. Most important, the courts are split on just how much you have to do to be liable – how they ultimately decide can change the way we all use the web.

Internet Users Sued By RIAA and MPAA

On September 8, 2003, the recording industry sued 261 American music fans for sharing songs on peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks, kicking off an unprecedented legal campaign against the people that should be the recording industry’s best customers: music fans. Five years later, the recording industry has filed, settled, or threatened legal actions against at least 30,000 individuals. These individuals have included children, grandparents, unemployed single mothers, college professors—a random selection from the millions of Americans who have used P2P networks. And there’s no end in sight; new lawsuits are filed monthly, and now they are supplemented by a flood of “pre-litigation” settlement letters designed to extract settlements without any need to enter a courtroom.

Written in 2008, the paper goes on to describe the history of Peer-to-Peer (“P2P”) sharing and the response of the Recording Industry Association of America (“RIAA”). Depending on which side of the debate you take, they are either on a crusade to punish fans or a mission to protect their copyrights. The Motion Picture Association of America (“MPAA”) has since joined the fight and seeks to stop the sharing of their content as well.

What Is Peer-to-Peer Sharing

Peer to Peer sharing involves any distributed network composed of users that make a portion of their resources available to other users on that network. The RIAA and MPAA law suits revolve around “file sharing,” and P2P first became popular with use of Napster and other music sharing programs. Today, some of the more popular programs involve Bit Torrent clients where users download and upload tiny pieces of a file and link sharing sites like Side Reel.

The highlight of our event is a free CLE webinar, which will be presented exclusively to registered members of our community on June 16, 2010 at 12pm EST. The following distinguished panel will present:

David Nimmer, Of Counsel at Irell & Manella LLP and author of Nimmer on Copyright

Peter Menell, Professor of Law at Berkeley Law and Director, Berkeley Center for Law & Technology

We are lining up a host of guest bloggers, discussion forums, and downloadable content that will cover the topic of peer-to-peer sharing and other Internet-related copyright issues.

David Nimmer on Peer-to-Peer Sharing

When I first asked David about the P2P issue, he wrote me this short blurb, which I think is worth sharing here as it sets the tone for our event:

Recent years have seen massive filings of copyright infringement suits for peer-to-peer sharing. In fact, more cases have been filed in that space (P2P) than in all other copyright domains combined (emphasis added). Courts have confronted a welter of defenses, centered on whether uploading links to such files implicates the copyright owner’s exclusive right to “distribute” the work to the public.

Some courts have construed the term “distribution” as synonymous with “publication,” whereas others have disagreed and required proof of an actual act of distribution. A host of issues has arisen, implicating such issues as whether purchases by undercover investigators working for the copyright owner count as infringement, or are to be deemed ipso facto authorized and hence non-infringing, as well as the measure of circumstantial evidence that could prove actual distribution. Hanging over the whole field is the specter that a losing defendant might end up saddled with tens of millions of dollars in statutory damages.

To me, the scariest part of David’s write up on the issue is that courts are currently debating whether the sharing or uploading of links triggers the copyright owners right of distribution! How many times have you uploaded a video link to a social network, blog, or email? According to some, you are infringing on copyrighted materials and potentially subjecting yourself to a law suit. Our event will help you identify these issues and present insights as to where this debate is ultimately heading.

A (not so) long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (on the Internet) ….

The lawyers at Nixon Peabody LLP are Jedi Knights when it comes to dealing with the dark side of copyrights (infringement, P2P sharing, pirating, etc.). These issues become even more menacing when they arise online. In an effort to restore order to the universe (of copyright) the following presentation will be given (grab your lightsaber):

A View from the Front in the Digital Copyright Wars: William Patry, Author and Senior Copyright Counsel, Google Inc.

The digital revolution is having a profound effect on copyright law. No company has had a closer seat to the action than Google. Please join our special guest, William Patry, well-known author and Senior Copyright Counsel at Google, for a discussion from his unique perspective on some current trends in U.S. copyright law. Among other topics, he will also discuss how Google is handling lawsuits in other countries, particularly those originally filed in the U.S., and effective use of business solutions to solve legal issues and litigation.